A jump in price has led London's city engineers to pull their support for a bus rapid transit (BRT) tunnel beneath Richmond Row.
Bureaucrats released their latest BRT route recommendations on Friday. They now suggest dedicated bus lanes and an at-grade level rail crossing on Richmond St. Staff also recommend moving forward with the King St./Queens Ave. couplet.
A detailed design, done by consultants, saw the cost of the 900-metre tunnel jump for $135-million to $220-million, including the 30% contingency funds.
"When we advanced the design work we asked our team to go from doing a planning level estimate to a quantities based estimate specific for this location," said Kelly Scherr, London's top engineer. "There were a lot of changes through all of the components of that tunnel. The stations, ventilation, fire and life safety, excavation, cost labour and materials all changed and it adds up."
Scherr noted the $85-million spike in the tunnel cost was not an easy pill to swallow.
"It's a significant change and it's certainly not the kind of information we were happy to see either," said Scherr.
The elimination of the tunnel would lead to a further slow down of what is meant to be a rapid transit system as buses would be forced to stop for trains crossing Richmond St on the CP tracks.
"Typical delay that we experience at Richmond St. is about five minutes on average, there obviously are some exceptions. There will be delay and it absolutely does mean the reliability of that leg is not what it would have been with a grade-separation with the tunnel. But we're not saying no forever on fixing this problem," said Scherr.
General Manager of the London Transit Commission Kelly Paleczny stated that, in the meantime, there are other actions that can be taken to avoid a bus backlog at the tracks.
"If the first bus in each direction gets stuck at those tracks, then those operators would be in contact with dispatch to say 'hey, there is a delay here.' The next bus coming down those corridors could be short turned. So there could essentially be communication to the operators to say let the passengers off at the next stop, turn your bus around and continue the leg the other way. So the schedules can be maintained," said Paleczny.
If council agrees to scrap the Richmond tunnel, city staff recommend an underpass at the train tracks on Adelaide St. be made a "necessary element" of BRT, fast tracking a request for funding from upper levels of government.
Despite the loss of the tunnel and the possible delays, city staff are not backing earlier suggestions to move the north corridor of the 24 km system from Richmond St. to Wharncliffe Rd.
"There are a variety of reasons why Richmond is preferred, the most fundamental being it serves the most transit patrons. Transit riders want to be where everyone else wants to be and this serves northwestern parts of downtown, Richmond Row and Oxford St. It serves the University and St. Joseph's hospital very well," said Scherr. "Wharncliffe serves the University well but doesn't connect to any other development in the same sort of meaningful way."
The staff report heading to the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on Monday also recommends splitting the east-west corridor option through the downtown onto King St. and Queens Ave. The move calms concerns over on-street parking and loading zones from Budweiser Gardens and the Covent Garden market, but will see transit riders having to do more walking.
The overall cost of the BRT system has dropped from $560-million to $440-million with the loss of the tunnel. If council approves the new recommendations an updated business case would be presented at the end of July.
Politicians asked city staff to examine alternative routes on April 4, following a significant amount of opposition to the current plan from the community, particularly downtown business owners.
Council will debate and finalize the routes on Tuesday.